According to the census, the overwhelming majority of small business owners are between the ages of 35 and 54.
This demographic, in large part, is not using social media for business networking.
Data source: Pew Internet & American Life Project and Auxiliary Quantitative Data
You know the power of online business networking. Here are “do’s” and “dont’s” that will help you communicate the importance of social media to your reluctant business colleagues
Don’t
- Inundate them with every feature of your favorite business networking site
- Complicate things by comparing too many services. For example, if they’re not interested in podcasts don’t keep pushing the issue just because it’s your most recent discovery
- Use jargon… i.e. Tweet, RSS, Wall, User Generated, Tag Cloud… these terms can be learned later; they mean nothing to people at the beginning stages
- Push colleagues on industry-heavy blogs, opinions, and articles before they discover social media for themselves
Do
- Specifically find out what they want to get out of business networking i.e. (sales leads, job search, head hunting, referral marketing…)
- After inviting a colleague to a new site, follow up with a phone call. There is a good chance they may not know what to do with the information
- Begin sending colleagues relevant information via social media platforms. i.e.(alerts, updates, messages)
- Send them a referral! Nothing is a greater testament to the power of social media as a business tool than a qualified sales lead delivered right to their in-box
Tags: Business Networking, social media
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